


Like Freshly Fallen Snow

by AsterRoc



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Creepy Pitch, Gen, Missing Scene, alternate POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-08 00:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsterRoc/pseuds/AsterRoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aka "Finding Jack's Teeth"</p><p> </p><p>  <i> Something that pesky little frost spirit had said earlier in the night kept nagging at him, but he couldn’t recall what.  </i></p><p> </p><p>Pitch struggles to remember what it was Jack had said about why he was involved, and then works to make the most of what he figures out.  </p><p>This story is set in the movie after Sandy’s death and before Jack arrives in Pitch’s lair with Baby Tooth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Freshly Fallen Snow

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t read the related books, but I’ve picked up some of the backstory from other RotG fanfic. My apologies if I mess up the canon at all. No knowledge of the canon nor of the fanon is necessary to enjoy this story, though there are a few Easter eggs for those who know it.

Something that pesky little frost spirit had said earlier in the night kept nagging at him, but he couldn’t recall what. Something about being a neutral party, about why he was hanging around with those, those… _Guardians_. First, at that sparkly fairy’s palace, he’d been surprised to see Frost at all. The seasonal spirits were quite low down on the totem pole after all, and not being tied to children, or even humanity for that matter, Pitch Black didn’t often interact with them. He hadn’t thought those hoity-toity Guardians would either. 

Ugh, the Guardians. Black brought a gray hand up to rub his forehead as he strode around the edges of the pit holding the teeth. His head ached every time he thought of them, but now he would whittle them away one by one, exploiting their weaknesses, picking them off. Not that it would take too much work to finish fracturing the group. Black paced the darkened cavern, to his globe and back again, ticking them off on his fingers. 

E. Aster Bunnymund, the one who got away, Black knew he carried a fear deep inside himself. Not a fear for those whose lives Black had already ended, but a fear of losing those who might come into the rabbit’s life in the future. The rabbit kept himself apart from the other Guardians for fear of that loss, and it made him weak. Bunnymund might have ended up a simple seasonal spirit himself here on Earth, if the Man in the Moon hadn’t tied him to the children’s belief in Easter. In some ways it made him stronger, but it also made him vulnerable to anything that attacked the children’s belief, and with Bunnymund’s reluctance to get close to anyone else, it made him the perfect next target. In fact, his Nightmares were working on this weakest link this very moment, scouting out his tunnels. Black didn’t know what he would do with that information yet, but it would come to him in time to ruin Easter. 

Black extended a second finger. Nicholas St. North, or Santa Claus, was so convinced of his holiday’s superiority that Black was often surprised he would even stoop to talk with the other Guardians. Good thing Black couldn’t sense arrogance, or he’d have a constant migraine from North. That one was so good that his only fears were for his precious little kids. His holiday was so strongly tied to commercialism that it would take a lot to weaken him, and Black was leaving him to last. 

A third finger joined the first two. Toothiana, the one “lady” among the Guardians, faked an aura of business to protect herself, keeping herself distant from the boys’ club, and making sure that she never had time for anyone other than her spawn. She would have all the time in the world with those loud critters now captured, bothering him instead with their incessant chatter, as they had been for the last few hours. Black glanced up from his fingers to watch them twittering in the cages, and realized that while their chatter was as loud as ever, they weren’t banging against the bars as much. Hm, a good sign, they were tiring, though whether due to the stress of being kept from Toothiana or from the children’s weakening belief in her, he did not yet know. It should be clear in the morning, after the next steps of his plan, all he had to do was wait. 

And certainly not least, Sanderson ManSnoozie, the Sandman, the dear little roly-poly fellow, who had given him the idea of corrupting the children’s own dreams to use against them. Of course ManSnoozie was gone now, and Black had to smile a toothy grin at that. Black closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the fear he’d felt from the Guardians as he’d watched ManSnoozie succumb. The Sandman himself had never given Black even the slightest taste of his fear though, damn the man, but Black could definitely see the despair in his eyes as they’d closed for the last time. Too bad he couldn’t taste it, but he was almost sated with the fear from the Guardians, not to mention Jack Frost. 

Which brought him back around to the new party on the scene. Black’s eyes went to his globe, to southeast Asia where he had first seen the boy with the Guardians, and hadn’t bothered to read his fears in depth. He had figured the youth was just tagging along with his betters in an attempt to ingratiate himself to someone with more power. Seeing Frost again at the start of this evening when Black had tracked down ManSnoozie was a surprise. The twerp had even managed to do something to one of his Nightmares, something using frost of course, the spirit was a one-trick pony, but ManSnoozie had distracted him before he’d been able to taste the boy as much as he would have liked. And then in the sky Frost had surprised him with the frost lightning after Black had finished off the Sandman, and everything had been driven out of his head for a while by the pleasant surprise of the frigid little spirit actually turning out to be a worthwhile opponent. Black grinned at the memory and ran a hand over North America. Now what had the boy said on that rooftop? 

Let’s see, Black had commented on how Frost was spending so much time with the Guardians, and Frost had shot back something about their meeting at the Tooth Palace. Ah, that was it! Black pulled his hand back from the globe, clenching it into a fist as he remembered Frost’s line: “You made it my fight when you stole those teeth.” ManSnoozie showing up so silently had driven his puzzlement at that comment right out of his mind. So, the teeth, now why would a little winter sprite care about the teeth of children? Unless… Black closed his eyes for more darkness, he always thought better the darker it was. Where _did_ little seasonal spirits come from anyway? Black knew where he himself had come from, and him and the Guardians made five strong spirits whose origins he knew: three of them had come from space (himself, the Sandman, and the rabbit), the fairy was some sort of Earth sprit-human hybrid, and North…

North had been human once, which meant that his teeth might possibly be among those Black had collected yesterday, if he could remember whether North or Toothiana came first, maybe that was what Frost wanted with the teeth? But no, Frost wasn’t the same sort of goody-two-shoes that the Guardians were, he wouldn’t care if North’s teeth were in Black’s possession. It would take something a little more… personal for Frost to get involved. 

And then Black had it. Frost’s own teeth must be among those Black had obtained, so he must have once been human as well. Black’s eyes snapped open and he looked around his cavern at the huge pile of tooth canisters his Nightmares had collected. He winced, reached one long-fingered hand back up to the side of his face, and rubbed his temple. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

At first Black went through the tooth containers one by one. He would hold up each one and glance at the picture. If it were a girl he’d toss it into a new pile near the Penrose staircase – however it was Frost came to be a spirit, Black doubted that he would have changed genders. He could be wrong of course, but he had to start somewhere in his search for the now-spirit’s teeth. Upon touching each canister, Black would read the fears contained therein and try to match them to what he knew of Frost. He tasted so many delicious fears, activating one after another, and took pleasure in knowing that the children owning those teeth were re-experiencing the fears as well. But there was no sign that he was getting any closer to Frost’s teeth, and after an hour or so of this and with increasing levels of frustration, Black burst out with a wave of nightmare sand and a yell together, scattering the nearest tooth boxes into the far corners of the cavern. The watching Nightmares scurried away into the shadows, their yellow eyes glowing to match the containers as they furtively continued to watch. 

Black took a deep, steadying breath. He had been going about it all wrong, looking at each individual tooth canister and comparing it to the young Frost spirit. He needed to do the opposite: hold the taste of Frost in his mind and let the teeth come to him. Black stood straight, held his arms out to his sides, closed his eyes, and remembered. What had he felt about Frost when they met at Toothiana’s palace? Black may not have been focusing on the winter sprite then, but the taste of other people’s fears always seeped into him anyway, he just had to recall the flavor of this one. Black smacked his lips, trying to evoke the memory of how the spirit’s fear had tasted. He parted his lips and ran the tip of his gray tongue over them, first the upper lip, then the lower lip, trying to wipe the flavors away from the corners of his mouth. And there, he had it. When North had asked Black’s motivations, he’d decided to go for a moment of false vulnerability and tell them how he just wanted to be believed in. And when he had done so, he’d felt Jack thrumming with it, he’d tasted the pointy flavor of ice cream that had been in the freezer too long, and for a moment Pitch had been inside Jack’s head. 

Black shook his head and pulled himself together, but kept his eyes closed. He needed to keep his distance from the fears so he could use them, not blissfully wallow in them as he wanted to. Black reestablished the layer of formality even while delving back into his memory of the flavors of the fear. Frost was afraid of loneliness, and when Black had casually tossed out an off-the-cuff comment about Frost being used to being ignored, the taste had grown sharper, snow tainted with ice melt. So Black was looking for teeth with fear memories about being alone, ignored, not believed in, everything that he had half-pretended motivated him when talking to the Guardians. Black pulled his sand to him. It swirled around him slow at first, a tenuous cloud stretched throughout the room, weaving, ebbing, flowing, searching. The mass closest to him began to swirl faster as the tendrils stretched throughout the room began to coalesce around points of fear. This one tasting of warm curdled milk, no that wasn’t quite right. That one of spoiled meat. Ah, there was a bit of ice cream, but it was just melted. And that one had the sickly sweet taste of antifreeze, that wasn’t it either. But finally there it was, ice cream with ice melt, snow and freezer burn. Black strode towards where the circling sands were bringing the golden box of teeth up to the surface of the pile, and then into the air and into Black’s outstretched hand. The image on the end was of a young boy with tousled brown hair matching his eyes, an infectious grin. 

It truly was an infectious grin. Black couldn’t help but smile as it settled into his hand.

* * *

Black sat on his steps cradling the golden canister with the face of the young human Jack in his hands. He knew Frost wanted these teeth and the memories contained therein. That must mean that the boy was missing the memories. So Black could use the teeth as a bargaining tool, as a lure, to bring the boy in. The only remaining thing he needed to do was find a way to further weaken and distract him. With the surprisingly strong winter spirit distracted by the teeth, that would buy Black the time for his Nightmares to make an end of the precious little “googies” of the rabbit. 

So how to use the teeth. The container sparkled in the faint light coming from the globe and a few potholes high above. The contrast it made with his dull gray skin reminded him of something he couldn’t quite remember, something from long ago, something about a light keeping the shadows at bay, but before he could dig it back up, the shadows swirled around him like a faithful hound begging its master for attention. Black circled the fingers on his right hand while holding the tooth box in his left, and the shadow sand came to his call, circling with the motion of his fingers. He aimed his index and second finger at the box, and a fine thread of the sand trickled towards the seam. As the sand flowed into the box, the flavors of human Jack’s fear flowed back out to Black, and then backwards along the connection between the teeth and spirit Frost the flavors of the sprite’s fear began to flow to Black as well.

Oh the lack of confidence! It was just like that of a teenage human, it was delicious. Black closed his eyes to better savor the flavor. It tasted of the night and dark chocolate, and reminded him of days when he used to creep under the beds of children as the only way he could feel their fears. Now of course Black continued to do so just for the fun of it, though he could gather in their fears from anywhere he chose. Just like he was gathering in Frost’s. The lack of confidence, the uncertainty in his own actions, with the only one certainty being that he was going to mess things up. The knowledge that he wouldn’t be a good enough—ooh, so they wanted Frost to be a Guardian now, did they? Now that was new. Black added Frost’s name to his target list. He would be an easy one, he already had a wedge driven between him and the old Guardians, as Frost feared that he would let them down. Frost had no knowledge of why he was chosen as a Guardian, and feared that he didn’t belong among them. Oh, this would be almost too easy. Black sighed in pleasure. Like taking candy from a baby. 

Black reached forward with his right hand, and touched the canister with his finger. He felt human Jack’s fear emanating from it, his worry about his sister. Black stroked that fear, and a plaintive young girl’s voice called out from the box. 

“Jack? Jack!” 

Black felt an echoing fear thrum back down the connection between the teeth and Frost, the bitter edge of the spirit’s recognizing the voice but not knowing _why_. Black sank into the shadows, continuing to stroke the box, waiting for the source of the living fear to arrive. Once it did, Black would release his Nightmares to attack all the eggs in the tunnels they had been mapping throughout the night. And when the conversation with the winter spirit was done, he would give Frost the box of his teeth, driving a wedge between him and the older Guardians. In the matter of a few minutes’ pleasure, Black would destroy both Easter and Winter. 

Black stroked the box again. The delicious fear grew ever closer, and finally entered his lair. Black told his Nightmares to start their work.

**Author's Note:**

> In my most recent rewatch of the film, I found myself wondering how Pitch went from the rooftop before the fight with Sandy where he wondered what Jack wanted with the teeth, to luring Jack into his lair with his sister's voice and confronting him with his fears. I hope you found my attempt at exploring that time, a little vignette from Pitch's POV, to be interesting. :)


End file.
